Mar. 15, 2014

Jackson, Miss., Mayor Chokwe Lumumba

Written by

Detroit Free Press Staff Writer

Detroit-born lawyer and civil rights activist Chokwe Lumumba, who moved south in the 1980s and was elected mayor of Jackson, Miss., last year, is being remembered this weekend in Detroit in memorial services.

Mr. Lumumba died Feb. 25 of a heart attack. He was 66.

Born Edwin Taliaferro, Mr. Lumumba changed his name while in his early 20s. Friends said he took his new first name from a central African ethnic group known for resisting invaders, and that he adopted a new surname in admiration of the African hero Patrice Lumumba, who was assassinated soon after wrenching independence for the Congo from Belgium.

Mr. Lumumba “was resolute in his commitment to human rights,” said Gerald Evelyn, a Detroit lawyer who met Lumumba when the two were law students in their 20s.

Mr. Lumumba received a bachelor’s degree in political science from Kalamazoo College before graduating cum laude from the Wayne State University Law School, according to family members. As a young lawyer in Detroit, Mr. Lumumba exuded charisma and creativity, Evelyn said. Mr. Lumumba won case after case by coming up with legal tactics “that nobody else would think of,” he said.

In the late 1970s, Mr. Lumumba founded the Malcolm X Center in Detroit; for 11 years, it provided a food co-op, youth center and legal aid to poor Detroiters, said Mr. Lumumba’s sister Sushana Cain.

In the late 1980s, Mr. Lumumba moved to Mississippi in support of the Republic of New Afrika, an organization that called for forming an independent black nation in the southeast U.S., said his sister.

But he later shifted his activism into mainstream politics after deciding that a separate state for black people was no longer needed, his sister said.

Mr. Lumumba was elected to the Jackson City Council in 2009 and elected mayor in June. Mayor Lumumba quickly united the city around the need for more revenue, and voters passed a 1% sales tax, which city officials have said will be essential to rebuilding the aging town.

Besides his sister, Mr. Lumumba is survived by six brothers and sisters, all living in the Detroit area. He was buried in Jackson beside the body of his wife, who died in 2002.

He is to be remembered today at 1 p.m. at Fellowship Chapel, 7707 W. Outer Drive, where the Rev. Wendell Anthony will preach, and 6-8 p.m. at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, 315 E. Warren, in a service of poetry, song and dance. A memorial service is to be held at 10 a.m. Sunday at Sacred Heart Catholic Church, 1000 Eliot, Detroit.